Much more interesting than "When will Blair go?" is "How has he survived so long?" And the answer is that Blair has not only carried out a kind of imposture, he has hugely benefited from grave systemic faults and deformations in our political culture, and in the process crushed both cabinet and parliament.

... our electoral system distorts the result in favour of the winning party, in 1997 giving Blair 63% of parliamentary seats with only 44% of the popular vote.

He has now empirically made the case for reform as no other prime minister ever has. It is quite impossible to defend an election in which a party wins 55% of seats with just over 35% of the vote.

By no accident, it is now very difficult for a Labour party leader to be removed by the party itself, harder than it was for the Tories to remove Thatcher or Duncan Smith. But there is nothing to stop MPs from voting in the clean, clear light of the Commons against a government which no longer enjoys their support. It really ought to be easier to get rid of an unwanted prime minister than an inadequate football manager.